Should I use matt, silk or soft sheen emulsion on my walls?

Every emulsion is the same basic thing — pigment and binder in water — and the sheen level is set by how much binder there is relative to pigment. More binder gives a tougher, less porous, shinier film. That single fact explains the whole decision: the finishes that survive scrubbing are the finishes that reflect light directionally, and light reflected directionally shows you every dent, roller lap and filled screw hole on the wall.

Step by step

1. Judge the wall before you judge the paint.Hold a torch flat against the wall and shine it along the surface. Everything the raking light picks up — undulations, filler patches, tape lines, old roller texture — will be visible in silk and largely invisible in matt. This is the single biggest input to the decision and most people skip it.
2. Default to matt on walls and ceilings.Ordinary vinyl matt is the standard UK wall finish for a reason: it hides an imperfect surface, it touches up better than anything shinier, and modern durable matts are far more washable than matt used to be. A ceiling should almost always be matt, because a ceiling is lit at a grazing angle by every window in the room.
3. Use soft sheen where you want a compromise.Soft sheen sits between matt and silk. It gives a low, soft lustre, a noticeably tougher and less porous film than matt, and forgives far more than silk does. If you want a wipeable wall in a hall or a child's bedroom and the plaster is only average, this is usually the right answer.
4. Reserve silk for flat walls that need cleaning.Silk is the most wipeable of the three and the least forgiving. It works on a properly flat, well-prepared wall in a stairwell, a hall or a kitchen. On an older wall it looks worse the moment the sun comes round, and it never touches up invisibly.
5. Do not use silk to solve a moisture problem.A shinier film is slightly less permeable, which is not the same as being waterproof, and putting silk on a cold wall that is condensing does not stop the condensation — it just moves where the water sits. Kitchen and bathroom paints are formulated for that job; sheen alone is not.
6. Check what is already on the wall before choosing.Matt goes over silk badly without preparation, because there is nothing for it to key to. If you are switching from silk to matt, wash the wall, abrade it lightly all over and expect to prime. Going the other way, matt to silk, is straightforward.
7. Buy the sheen you chose, not the brand's word for it.Sheen names are marketing, not standards. One maker's soft sheen is another's low sheen or matt emulsion with a lustre. If it matters, brush a sample onto a piece of lining paper, let it dry properly and look at it in raking light before committing to a room.

Tips

• In a room lit by one window along one wall, the wall opposite that window is the one that will show sheen faults. Judge from there.
• Dark colours in a sheen finish are unforgiving twice over — the sheen shows the surface and the depth of colour shows every lap and touch-up.
• If you have inherited silk walls and hate them, a durable matt over a properly prepared silk wall is one of the cheapest transformations there is.

Common mistakes

• Choosing silk because the room is a kitchen — Kitchen-specific emulsions exist and are formulated for grease and moisture. Silk gives you sheen, not a kitchen paint, and shows every imperfection in a room full of hard directional light.
• Using silk on a ceiling — A ceiling is lit at almost exactly the grazing angle that makes sheen reveal defects. Even a good ceiling looks poor in silk.

Questions people ask